The big issue: Blairism

In his defence of Tony Blair ('Don't call for his head. Respect his leadership', Comment, last week), Will Hutton accuses 'left politics' of lacking intellectual rigour; a few sentences later he speaks glowingly of the wealthy and the need to tell the electorate that it is 'glorious to be rich'. As fairy tales go, this is an old one, since in his judgment the 'rich' of whom he speaks so glowingly are committed to social justice and, presumably, the rescue from poverty of Cinderellas such as Will Hutton.

He may not have time to read about the less than glorious antics of the rich, the pension swindles, the property fixes, the tax avoidance and the attitude that 'the rich' deserve a better place in the sun than anyone else. The enthusiastic case he makes for entrepreneurship ('embrace it, warts and all') is not just redolent of Thatcherism, it validates any regime in which the pursuit of profit is given priority over every other value. Mary Evans Canterbury, Kent

Three cheers for Will Hutton! At last, a serious commentator from the centre-left who is not engaged in Blair-bashing. I am fed up with the self-indulgent masochism of those on the liberal-left who would do well to learn the lessons of recent history. Remember the unelectable Labour party of the Seventies and early Eighties and the fragmentation of the Tories after their assassination of Thatcher. In a country that is naturally conservative (too often with a large C), Blair has had electoral success unprecedented for a centre-left leader, and his command of the centre-ground is so total that all the Tories can offer in 'Dave' Cameron is a pale imitation, who is even more style and even less substance. And any substance that does lurk in him is really right-wing populism.

For anybody of even vaguely centre-left persuasions, there is no pragmatic alternative to Blairism. If there were, Blair would probably be doing it! If we do not allow Blair to go when he's ready, he will be replaced not by Old Labour, but by the same old Conservatives. Nathan R FrancisCardiff

Tony Blair's leadership is based almost exclusively on his declared moral righteousness. The economy is a success, he tells us, while we all see the benefits only applying to those 'entrepreneurs' with a snout in the free-market trough. The rest of us struggle to cope with a crumbling social infrastructure, schools an on-going experiment, hospitals understaffed, pensions in crisis, catastrophic levels of personal debt, a runaway housing market and ever- increasing inequality. Under Blair, his cronies in government have been dogged by scandal and corruption that he has either pardoned or later forgiven with a cushy appointment. Simon ClarkeLondon SW15